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Is It Possible To Take Food Too Seriously?


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I would like to hope that service personnel really do want to hear honest opinions about what's being put in front of them.

If I don't share my opinions on something, then I feel like I'm doing them a disservice.

I wish everyone could think like this.
There are alot of people out there who will smile at your face and go think how bad their experience was.

 
Ferhat,
Even worse, there are people who smile at your face and then go post nasty shit on the internet. Sad, but true.

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Here's a scenario for you:  You discover a really nice recipe and it becomes a "company" dish you serve when you are looking to make people happy.

I have such a recipe, which was published in the Post years ago in the Food Section under the "Dinner Tonight" feature.  It sounded so bizarre, I had to make it.  I am talking the "Chicken with Peaches and Basil."  This stuff is just delicious and a perfect summer dish when peaches are at their peak.  (I long ago substituted raspberry vinegar for the balsamic originally called for.)

You haul peaches and basil on a plane and make this for people who have been enormously helpful to you.  Then you hear "I like PLAIN food."  What does this mean?  Am I being too "serious" about food?  Am I supposed to throw a chicken breast on a plate and skip the peaches, basil, shallots and cream?  Is this an example of someone not being serious ENOUGH about food?

I LOVE that recipe. I clipped it too. :lol: . I realized recently that I don't save anywhere near the number of recipes I used to save from the Post, even though the web site makes it easier than it used to be. With that particular recipe, I think it might be the combination of ingredients that throws some people. Peaches and chicken is not the most conventional food combination, but it's a really tasty one if you try it.

(And, yes, it is possible to be too serious about food.)

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I would like to hope that service personnel really do want to hear honest opinions about what's being put in front of them.

If I don't share my opinions on something, then I feel like I'm doing them a disservice.

I wish everyone could think like this.
There are alot of people out there who will smile at your face and go think how bad  their experience was.

 
I always venture into the dining room believing that every table had a great meal and a great experience, when I talk to a customer though you can never be sure of their sincerity, it would do more for me for someone to be honest, criticism actually helps.

PS- Its possible to dedicate your life to food and not take it too seriously.

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There was a long discussion on another Society's site about use of the term foodie and its alternatives. I agree with Mark Slater that "gastronaut" is pretty cool, and while bon vivant I think is descriptive of many of us :lol: , it has a wider connotation that goes beyond simply food. I think that like anything else that as long as it's linked to enjoyment you can be as serious about food as you like. If it becomes obsessive, or interfering with one's pleasure well that would be a problem, wouldn't it?

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I LOVE that recipe. I clipped it too.  tongue.gif .  I realized recently that I don't save anywhere near the number of recipes I used to save from the Post, even though the web site makes it easier than it used to be.

 
I used to have PILES of Food Sections waiting to clip. I haven't clipped a recipe from there in a long time. I did, however, make the wasabi/mayo sauce in the Source last Sunday and served it with grilled tuna. It was nice. I'm always looking for good tuna recipes.

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It grieves me to say that not only have I witnessed this particular example first hand, in the name of politness, I have actually eaten it while being lectured by a stranger on the merits of "anonized" aluminum pots & pans.

 
Oh, you have got to be kidding! ohmy.gif Someone actually made this?!

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Oh, you have got to be kidding! ohmy.gif   Someone actually made this?!

 
I've been presented with this too. I managed to escape without trying. But my host was quite proud of it and had requested the "recipe" from a friend who'd served it at a party.

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Oh, you have got to be kidding! ohmy.gif   Someone actually made this?!

 
This sounds like it could be from one of any number of Southern Junior League cookbooks. Where do you think Sandra Lee gets most of her recipes? laugh.gif

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This sounds like it could be from one of any number of Southern Junior League cookbooks. Where do you think Sandra Lee gets most of her recipes?  laugh.gif

 
I guess this might be an item to bring to the next DR.com picnic. laugh.gif

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ONLY if you don't know what's in it. Right, Rocks?

 
The absence of full disclosure can be a beautiful thing.

Of course the opposite situation can be true as well. Read the ingredients on Whole Foods' prepared foods, and they look just fine. One taste, however, is all you need to realize that - ouch! - that lemon couscous made with organic ingredients bites the high hard one, as does just about everything else there.

This is why there's alcohol and why it's often best to eat in the dark, a don't-ask don't-tell policy being the order of the day.

Cranky, picky, often going hungry out of principle and spite,
Rocks.

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The absence of full disclosure can be a beautiful thing.

Of course the opposite situation can be true as well.  Read the ingredients on Whole Foods' prepared foods, and they look just fine.  One taste, however, is all you need to realize that - ouch! - that lemon couscous made with organic ingredients bites the high hard one, as does just about everything else there.

This is why there's alcohol and why it's often best to eat in the dark, a don't-ask don't-tell policy being the order of the day.

Cranky, picky, often going hungry out of principle and spite,
Rocks.

 
laugh.giflaugh.giflaugh.giflaugh.giflaugh.giflaugh.gif

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The absence of full disclosure can be a beautiful thing.

Of course the opposite situation can be true as well.  Read the ingredients on Whole Foods' prepared foods, and they look just fine.  One taste, however, is all you need to realize that - ouch! - that lemon couscous made with organic ingredients bites the high hard one, as does just about everything else there.

Since we've had no kitchen for the past month (and ETA for the new kitchen is realistically Thanksgiving), I've been buying Whole Foods prepared foods and have found them to be perfectly acceptable. They're a hell of a lot better than the Lean Cuisine I just ate for dinner. (I'm doing what I can with the microwave and toaster oven, but I've been working hard all day and I'm tired.)

I also buy the blackened salmon at WF and make salmon burgers out of them. Tomorrow I'll make Boboli pizza in the toaster oven. I'm quite impressed with how well that's been working out, but the pizza at Sonoma is an awful lot better :lol: .

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Wasn't there a lot of discussion about Miracle Whip around here recently? And wasn't it mostly declared harmless?

Well the problem is that once you create something like that,  people are inevitably tempted to do really, really unnatural things with it.*

(*Kinda like free will. And genitals, obviously.)

Almost 17 years ago, several of my mother's friends threw a wedding shower for me and this exact delicacy was served. I also received a copy of the recipe, along with about a dozen others that the ladies were asked to write from memory since they were "tried and true man-pleasers" that they knew by heart. I still have all of the recipes; not because I've made them often (or EVER) to please my man. I have them because of the lovely ladies who gave them to me, many of whom are gone today. I'll never forget all the women oooohing and ahhhhing over the veggie pizza! And no, I've never made it....well maybe once when I was 22 and had NO cooking skills, experience or TASTE! :lol:

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They're a hell of a lot better than the Lean Cuisine I just ate for dinner. (I'm doing what I can with the microwave and toaster oven, but I've been working hard all day and I'm tired.)

 
Had a lean cuisine for the first time yesterday. Nasty, Nasty & more Nasty

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The absence of full disclosure can be a beautiful thing.

Of course the opposite situation can be true as well. Read the ingredients on Whole Foods' prepared foods, and they look just fine. One taste, however, is all you need to realize that - ouch! - that lemon couscous made with organic ingredients bites the high hard one, as does just about everything else there.

This is why there's alcohol and why it's often best to eat in the dark, a don't-ask don't-tell policy being the order of the day.

Cranky, picky, often going hungry out of principle and spite,
Rocks.

 
Yikes, Rocks! This post is ultra subversive. I love the line about "this is why there's alcohol". I couldn't agree more. Food is fuel. Fine dining is entertainment. When the food and the entertainment are good, voilí , you have a good time. When one or both suck, you know what happens. Bad review on the internet. Sometimes you need food and sometimes you need entertainment. Sometimes you need alcohol. biggrin.gif

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I was having this same conversation about modern art not too long ago. I was looking at a Rothko with a lawyer-friend of mine, and he asked "why?" - "why is this art, and why should I appreciate it?" And my explanation was that sometimes you can love a dish that has been meticulously prepared, lots of ingredients & spices, lots of sauce, lots of time - a complex masterpiece of a dish - and it will blow your mind away. OR you can pick a fresh tomato from the garden, slice it, drizzle a little balsamic, a little olive oil, maybe some salt and pepper - the most simple preparations - and it too, will blow your mind away. Modern art - and more specifically, Minimalism - is the latter.

I don't think he got it - but that's ok. He's a lawyer.

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Had a lean cuisine for the first time yesterday. Nasty, Nasty & more Nasty

 
I hadn't eaten a frozen dinner in years before falling back on them recently as the quickest way of getting something to eat without getting any dishes dirty. I used to like some Stouffer's frozen foods (the mac and cheese especially) years ago, but I've never found any full meals that I really like. I can't imagine relying on these as the basis for a regular diet. They're also really expensive for what they are. The Whole Foods prepared foods, which are also high-priced, are a better deal for me comparatively. I've liked most of the grains I've tried there, but I don't think I've tried lemon couscous wink.gif .

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What a mere 1 cup of mayo can get you... click. [link unknown] biggrin.gif

Must be an original recipe and include 1 cup of Hellmann's Mayonnaise

Recipe must be an entrée

Recipes submitted by professional chefs, cooks in training or culinary professionals of any kind are not eligible

I could win this contest.

I knew someone in a Mechanical Engineering class. The project was to create an automatic device that would drop 50 marbles into a pot, taking precisely one minute to do so. The "score" was determined by counting the number of deposited marbles after one minute had passed - the catch being that if the 50th marble fell before a minute was over, the project received a failing grade. So if the 50th marble fell during the 59th second, you failed.

People apparently spent great amounts of time making these elaborate devices, one of them was a rocking-thing, synchronized to approximate one marble per second, and dropping maybe 40 or 45 marbles after a minute had passed.

And then there was the student who simply taped a marble to a shoebox, and when the clock started, turned it over, dropping 49 marbles in the first second.

Urban legend? Maybe, but with that in mind:

One lobe foie gras, seared.

One cup Hellmann's served on the side in a sealed, opaque Tupperware container, with a small porcelain bowl resting on top of it containing coarse sea salt. Season to taste.

BFA,

Rocks.

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Must be an original recipe and include 1 cup of Hellmann's Mayonnaise
Recipe must be an entrée
Recipes submitted by professional chefs, cooks in training or culinary professionals of any kind are not eligible


I could win this contest.

One lobe foie gras, seared.
One cup Hellmann's served on the side in a sealed, opaque Tupperware container, with a small porcelain bowl resting on top of it containing coarse sea salt.  Season to taste.

But with the "Taste of the World" theme I suspect that the winner will be something along the lines of...

chicken tenders threaded on bamboo skewers and slathered with a mixture of:

the 1 cup mayo
1 can of crushed pineapple, drained
3/4 cup ketchup
1/8 of a chipotle pepper (can be omitted or the amount reduced, if too spicy)
1/4 teaspoon of McCormick's (or other supermarket brand) curry powder

Cooked on a hibachi (or under a broiler, if one wants to feel international when it is raining outside).

huh.giflaugh.gif BFA, for sure.

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Call me bitter, but I got carryout sushi tonight and was saving my uni for the final two pieces. It turns out it wasn't fresh, and so this wretched taste will still be with me through the end of August. Say what you want about putiedam, but bad uni gets my vote as the worst food in the world - I'm going to put the second piece out as ant bait.

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Call me bitter, but I got carryout sushi tonight and was saving my uni for the final two pieces. It turns out it wasn't fresh, and so this wretched taste will still be with me through the end of August. Say what you want about putiedam, but bad uni gets my vote as the worst food in the world - I'm going to put the second piece out as ant bait.

 
Rocks, please tell my why any sane person would purchase carryout uni on a Sunday night in July? I shiver just thinking about it.

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Rocks, please tell my why any sane person would purchase carryout uni on a Sunday night in July? I shiver just thinking about it.

Mark, please tell me why you are putting Rocks and sanity in the same sentence? I shiver just thinking about it. laugh.gif

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Call me bitter, but I got carryout sushi tonight and was saving my uni for the final two pieces. It turns out it wasn't fresh, and so this wretched taste will still be with me through the end of August. Say what you want about putiedam, but bad uni gets my vote as the worst food in the world - I'm going to put the second piece out as ant bait.

 
If the worst food in the world is bad uni, then the second worst would have to be good uni. tongue.gif

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Rocks, please tell my why any sane person would purchase carryout uni on a Sunday night in July? I shiver just thinking about it.

 
Uni, at least the stuff our of the wooden boxes or plastic trays, is a preserved product. I am not sure that day of the week plays into freshness. Uni out of the shell is another story altogether, but then the day of most worry is probabably Monday night.

As to sanity and Rocks... he is a model of sanity as from where I stand..... rolleyes.gif

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It is possible. I started a trip to Watkins Glen, New York by driving 40 minutes in exactly the wrong direction just for a Lickity Split lunch at Eve, then started the homeward trip by driving 20 minutes in exactly the wrong direction for bruch at my favorite Finger Lakes joint. :)

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Yes and no. I believe that as soon as you hurt the feelings or alienate someone you care about because of food or an inability to compromise, you've crossed a line. Most of you take human beings more seriously than food, though.

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thats because food usually equals socialabilty. That is how I equate dinner, not as stuffing my stomach but more along the lines of the company that comes with stuffing my stomcah.

 
I second that emotion. Restaurant Week for me is actually a wonderful opportunity for me to connect with friends that I haven't seen in a while or haven't made the time to re-connect with. The food is totally secondary. It's just a matter of multi-tasking.

However, a dinner at Komi or CityZen or Vidalia on a Saturday evening is absolutely about gastronomic epiphanies. No doubt about it.

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There's a review of Barbara Holland's excellent-sounding The Joy of Drinking in the coming New York Times Book Review available online here (subscription required). An excerpt:

As much as Holland enjoys romping down London's Gin Lane and through America's Jazz Age and Prohibition, she can't abide our current era of moderation. Hip urbanites, she writes, "turned drinking in moderation into a high-class avocation." Wine tours caught on and microbreweries arrived. The devotees "aren't drinkers. They're connoisseurs and critics, priests of ritual, sniffers and tasters, discerning scholars scowling thoughtfully into their glass. Fun has nothing to do with it. ... In the metropolitan haunts of the highly sophisticated, the cocktail is no longer an instrument of friendship but a competitive fashion statement, or one-upmanship."

 
Honestly. I like fine booze and food as much as the next, uh, privileged nerd, but if one more person calls me a heathen for putting ice in my whisky or a maraschino cherry in my manhattan, I may just consider becoming a teetotaller. (But just consider because I mean, yeah right).

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I was at Restaurant 3 last night with a couple of friends and sampling a few plates at the bar. There was a gentleman who stood next to us and practically buried his nose in each plate as they were set in front of us. He then proceeded to ask us questions about each dish and offer commentary on our food as we ate it. This guy was either incredibly curious (to the point of being a nuisance) or just took his food too seriously. Dude, just order something. If you don't like it, don't order it again!

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I was at Restaurant 3 last night with a couple of friends and sampling a few plates at the bar. There was a gentleman who stood next to us and practically buried his nose in each plate as they were set in front of us. He then proceeded to ask us questions about each dish and offer commentary on our food as we ate it. This guy was either incredibly curious (to the point of being a nuisance) or just took his food too seriously. Dude, just order something. If you don't like it, don't order it again!

 
Was this man in your party? If not, I would tell the dude to get lost and get a life. Even if he was part of my group, I would tell him to get his nose out of my food. What is wrong with some people?

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